• Download factsheet on the gender pay gap

• Download statement from the European Women’s Lobby

Editorial

courtesy of www.2010againstpoverty.eu

Women across Europe are more likely than men to experience poverty, and single mothers, older women and immigrant women are particularly vulnerable. Fifteen years after the signing of the Beijing Declaration on the right of women, there is still a long way to go.

Women are more likely than men to have poor housing, to neglect their health and struggle to find child-care services. Financial precariousness can cause women to stay with violent men and force others into prostitution and human trafficking. This gender imbalance is likely to grow in the current economic climate

“Gender neutral language can mask the fact that more women than men are poor,” says Leanda Barrington-Leach of the European Women’s Lobby. “A third of single parents experience poverty, and of those single parents 80-90 percent are women. The same goes for older people. Women tend to live longer and they don’t have as much savings and security backup as men, so they are often poorer.”

EU action plan

The EU strategy to eradicate or at least reduce poverty is to offer Members States a framework for action. This strategy includes developing a plan to encourage “active inclusion” national policies, and to promote across Europe the exchange of good practices. The implementation of Europe’s equality and anti-discrimination laws also aims to hoist women out of poverty onto a level playing-field.

In most EU member states, 17% of women experience poverty compared to 15% of men. Among single parents 35% live in poverty. The provision of child-care is often inadequate, and maternity leave is not fairly shared between genders with the result that women lose earnings over this period.

Women in seven EU countries earn 20% less than men in equivalent jobs. The pay gap between men and women throughout their working lives inevitably leaves women with smaller pensions. Currently, 36.8% of women between the ages of 55 and 64 are employed, compared to 55% of men, and European women are four times more likely than men to have part-time jobs, fixed-term contracts or no contracts at all. As a result, some 35% of women aged over 65 risk poverty, compared to 16% of older men.

Root causes

The gender pay gap has various causes, including stereotyping that starts at school. Girls may choose educational directions that lead to jobs traditionally seen as women’s work, like nursing, teaching infants or as supermarket cashiers. These professions are generally poorly paid.

Women in more competitive environments may find they hit the so-called “glass ceiling” that bars them from managerial and top positions. Women are also more likely than men to take unpaid breaks from work to raise children or care for elderly relatives. All these situations can lead to poverty in old age.

In all age groups, women face a much higher risk than men of poverty after a separation, divorce of death of their partner. Furthermore, women in all the more vulnerable groups like the disabled, immigrants, ethnic minorities or those living in rural areas are more likely to experience poverty than men.

The economic crisis is likely to see figures for unemployment increase sharply, particularly among public sector workers where women are heavily represented. Funding for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and equality bodies is already being cut in some EU countries, like Ireland.  Women will have less places to turn to for assistance.

“It is still too early to see the gender dimension of the recession,” says Barrington-Leach. “At first it seemed to mainly affect men in the car and construction industries, but women are being hit in different ways as they are more economically vulnerable to start off with. Plans for recovery from the recession also offer an opportunity to improve women’s economic lot.”

Source

The 10 Year Strategy has 3 priorities:

1) Smart Growth: developing an economy based on knowledge and innovation.

2) Sustainable Growth: promoting a more resource efficient, greener and more competitive economy.

3) Inclusive Growth: fostering a  high-employment economy delivering social and territorial cohesion.

The Strategy Includes 5 Headline 10 Year Targets:

1) 75% of people between 20-64 should be employed.

2) 3% of EU’s GDP should be invested in R&D by

3) “20/20/20″ climate/energy targerts should be met

4) Share of early school leavers should be under 10% and at least 40% of younger generation have a tertiary degree.

5) 20 million less people should be at risk of poverty.

Check back soon for a more detailed analysis of Europe 2020.

Download Europe 2020

Download Publication

“All over Europe, people are coming together to say that they don’t want a return to the obsessive focus on growth, or to the economics of boom and bust. Grassroots movements are organising and demanding innovative and sustainable solutions to the crisis. Solutions like a Robin Hood tax on speculative banking; a High Pay Commission to tackle inequality, and a standard of minimum income to raise millions of people and children in Europe above the poverty line and towards a better life,” she said.

Ms. Visser made the comments in her opening address to over 250 delegates attending the EAPN international conference on tackling poverty in Ireland and Europe entitled ‘Building Social Europe – from crisis to opportunity’ which is being held today (Friday) at Croke Park, Dublin.

She continued, “The European Union is losing the fight against poverty and must reassert itself as a progressive force for social and economic change.  It is losing the battle for hearts and minds and has forgotten Jean Monnet’s famous assertion that the Union is about uniting people, not states.”

The EAPN warns that it is time for the European Union to accept that the Growth and Jobs Strategy has not delivered for the 80 million European citizens who live in poverty in one of the richest regions in the world. “According to Eurostat, the European At Risk of Poverty rate has remained more or less static at 16% since 2005; which is hardly an unqualified success,” said Ms. Visser.

“2010 is the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion and it represents a unique opportunity for the European Union to reinvent itself and emerge from this shared crisis with a renewed mandate from its citizens and a roadmap to rebuild the European social and economic model.”

The conference brought together speakers, panellists and contributors including Minister for Social and Family Affairs, Mary Hanafin, T.D.; Marie Donnelly, DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, European Commission; Mary Doyle, Deputy Secretary General, Department of An Taoiseach, Proinsias de Rossa, MEP, and Jerome Vignon, Former Director of DG Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities, European Commission.

The conference will set out a vision for a better Europe and for a European project that will reduce and eliminate poverty in the EU over the next ten years.

-ends-

For More Information & to Arrange Interviews Contact:

Mark Byrne

European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland

22 Great Strand Street

Dublin 1

www.eapn.ie

01-8745737 / 0877587922

“For the last decade, the European Commission has espoused a ‘growth before all else message’. In its analysis of the Lisbon Strategy, the Commission concluded that the plan would have been a huge success had it not been for the economic crisis. This is absurd for a number of reasons.”

“Firstly, European Commission policies and priorities had a direct – and in many cases negative – impact on the ability of Member States to cope with the economic crisis. The liberalisation and ‘growth above all else’ agenda weakened the social infrastructure of many member states. As a result, the economic crisis had a far more negative human impact than might otherwise have been the case.”

Ms. Visser continued

“Secondly, to pretend that everything was fine in the European Union before the economic crisis is nothing more than self-delusion. Even in 2007 there were 78 million people living in poverty in the European Union. One in five children born in the European Union faced poverty from the first day of their lives. Growth and jobs are important but not as important as sustainable growth and decent jobs.”

2010 is the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. EAPN Ireland is calling on EU leaders to ensure that the next ten year plan focuses on people and society as well as economic issues. On 19^th February 2010, The European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland will host an International Conference “Building Social Europe: From Crisis to Opportunity” at Croke Park Dublin. For more information, visit www.eapn.ie

For More Information Contact:

Mark Byrne

Information and Awareness

European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland

22 Great Strand Street

Dublin 1

www.eapn.ie

01-8745737 / 0877587922

EAPN Ireland will be we working hard right throughout 2010 to put poverty and social exclusion at the top of the national agenda.!

A decade of progress on poverty in Ireland will be reversed without immediate action from the Government, according to Anna Visser, Director of the European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland. Speaking before the launch (05/02/10) of the Irish programme for the 2010 European year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion, Ms. Visser called on the Government to ensure a lasting legacy for the 2010 year; including a job strategy, a commitment on no further cuts to the incomes of the poorest in society, and a plan for how the Government will reach its own target of eliminating consistent poverty by 2016.

“Relative and consistent poverty rates have been declining in Ireland for nearly a decade, but we are now at a tipping point in the fight against poverty and social exclusion. If Government policy continues to ignore the unemployment and social crisis in favour of banking, construction and cuts to public services, then it is highly probable that Ireland will see a considerable increase in poverty rates in years ahead”.

“The Government’s obsessive focus on the banking and construction sectors means that decisions made in the last two budgets exacerbated the employment and social crisis that Ireland is facing. There are over 420,000 people on the live register and they have had no indication at all that their plight is a priority for the Government. Similarly, the Government has been totally silent on the massive crisis in terms of youth employment – one in three young men under the age of 24 is now unemployed. Just 6.7% per cent of employed people are at risk of poverty in Ireland but that figure rises to 23% for unemployed people.”

Ms Visser continued:

“2010 is an opportunity for the Government to provide a positive vision of how Irish society can emerge from recession and how we rebuild and strengthen our social and economic foundations.” The European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland will play a crucial role in lobbying and campaigning around its objectives for the 2010 Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion. Those objectives and campaigns include:

• Securing a roadmap from the Irish Government on how it intends to meet its own target – as set out in ‘Towards 2016’ – to reduce consistent poverty to between 2-4% by 2012 and to eliminate it entirely by 2016.
• EAPN Ireland will – through its campaigns and alliances – lobby the Government to develop and implement a comprehensive activation plan to get people back to work. Less than two years ago, Ireland had one of the lowest unemployment rates in the European Union. It now has one of the highest.
• EAPN Ireland will campaign against any further cuts to the incomes of the poorest and most vulnerable in society.
• EAPN Ireland is calling on the Government to develop a comprehensive ‘participation in policy making’ framework to build on the success of the Social Inclusion Forum.

EAPN Ireland will hold an international conference “Building Social Europe: From Crisis to Opportunity” in Dublin on 19^th February to discuss how best to tackle and eliminate poverty in the European Union over the next decade.

ENDS

Notes to Editors:

• The European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland lobbies and campaigns for a stronger social dimension to policymaking at European and national level. EAPN Ireland is a network of groups and individuals working against poverty and social exclusion. The organisation is the Irish network of the European Anti-Poverty Network. EAPN Ireland works towards keeping poverty at the top of the Irish and European agenda through training, lobbying, policy development, and information dissemination.
• More information on poverty in Ireland and Europe, and on the 2010 Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion is available from www.eapn.ie

For More Information Contact:

Mark Byrne

Communications Officer

European Anti-Poverty Network Ireland

22 Great Strand Street

Dublin 1

www.eapn.ie

01-8745737 / 0877587922